Page 47 of A Vine Mess
But damn, I missed girl talk. I missed these crazy women.
“Explain!” Amara yelled over the din, and I did. Succinctly, I told them about Sioux Falls, the impromptu stop, the conversation about artists—which still gave me the warm fuzzies, that he saw me that way—and him dropping that bomb on me.
“He said, and I quote, ‘you’ve always been the someone special, Wildflower.’”
“Fuck,” Chloe breathed. “That’s going in my next book.”
“Told you,” Amara smirked. “Liam is one thousand percent husband material.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Chloe said, surprising me. As a romance novelist who recently published her first book, she was surely the most optimistic of us when it came to matters of the heart. Normally, she’d be the first one to give credence to that kind of statement.
“I’m in a deeply committed relationship,” she said. “I think that gives me some insider knowledge on the subject.”
“Except you’re not married,” Delia helpfully pointed out.
“Didn’t even really like the guy until about a year ago, actually,” Brie quipped.
“Fuck you guys,” Amara said, though there was no heat behind the words.
“We love Cal, for what it’s worth,” Chloe told Amara, placatingher. “ButIam the only one of us that’s married, and here’s what I think.”
“Here we go,” Delia said under her breath, accompanying it with an eye roll. I bit back a laugh.
In truth, I really wanted to hear what Chloe had to say. Both because she was right—she was the only one of us who was married, had been for over a year now—and because she was a best-selling romance author. Her words on the subject clearly resonated with the masses, and I could definitely benefit from her insights.
“I don’t think we know enough about Liam to gauge whether or not he’s marriage material,” Chloe continued, ignoring Delia’s statement. “ButI do know that I’ll forever be grateful to him for letting you tag along on that trip. You needed this time away, sissy,” she told me. “And that right there is enough to show me he’s a good man. What I do think is that Alfie fucked you over, and that fucked you up for a while. There’s nothing wrong with taking time to heal, to find yourself again before you can begin giving pieces of yourself to other people again. We’re by your side no matter what.” Amara, Delia, and Brie nodded in agreement. “But it seems to me like you need someone to tell you it’s okay to feel an attraction toward him so you stop beating yourself up over it. And that it’s okay to take the leap, encouraged even, despite the slim chance it may not work out. Because I have a good feeling about this,” she said, holding up a hand when I opened my mouth to protest. “But if that’s what it takes, then listen to me very carefully little sister: it’s okay to move on. And there are worse guys in the world to move on with than Liam Danvers.”
Though I was seconds away from bursting into tears, deeply grateful for these four women who I was not only lucky enough to call my sisters but also my best friends, I tried to play it off. I’d cried enough the last few months.
“I think you guys will say just about anything to pair me off now that I’m the only lone wolf in our pack,” I said, sniffing loudly.
“No,” Chloe stated firmly. “We only want you to be happy, just like we are.”
I could only nod, my throat clogged with emotion.
I wanted that too. Badly, with every fiber of my being. I just wasn’t sure I knew what that looked like anymore.
But…it seemed like this road trip was as good a place as any to start figuring it out.
“What do we wantto do today?” I asked Ella over coffee.
The stuff was the terrible instant kind, and I grimaced as it hit my tongue. That was the one thing we’d forgotten when we’d gone grocery shopping the day before, and these packets were all I’d managed to locate in the cupboards when I stumbled, bleary-eyed, into the kitchenette this morning after too many bourbon and Cokes at the fire last night with Jon.
What a vastly different experience last night had been compared to the night before. Ella had disappeared earlier than me, whispering that she wanted to call her family and urging me to stay put. I wasn’t complaining. I liked Jon and Laura a great deal, and their girls were a chaotic bunch that passed the time before their parents put them to bed making up scary stories and disputing the best way to construct a s’more.
I hadn’t laughed that much in a long time, and I was happy and relaxed by the time I returned to our cabin, deliciously fuzzy-brained.
But that fog cleared away quickly when I stepped inside, the liquor coursing through my veins the only reason I’d managed to convince myself I’d imagined the tail end of Ella’s conversation with her sisters.
Because there was no fucking way Ella was feeling this attraction between us the same way I did. That simply wasn’t possible. I was trying and fucking up every step of the way, so there was no reason for her to be interested in me.
Then again, I had poured my heart out to her. She was aware of my feelings, and maybe that had her seeing me in a new, more favorable light.
There are worse guys in the world to move on with than Liam Danvers.
Obviously, I agreed, but those were just pretty words from one of her sisters. Whether or not Ella acted on them remained to be seen.
We stood side by side on the little porch of our cabin, and each sip of coffee went down my esophagus like acid.
